Please let Astrologians Pick the First Cards outside combat within Raiding Instances

[Thoro39]

I think some people are genuinely not reading the OP's intention correctly and should mayhaps take some reading classes again. OP is not talking about regular groups, he's talking about speedkilling groups. You might say it's a minority, but an AST-change like that will mean a lot to them and change absolutely nothing for everyone else as they just pull anyway, so all in all, a plus gain.

OP is asking for the ability to choose your card OUT OF Combat (ONLY IN RAIDS), and as such, a change like that will do nothing in terms of healer balance MIDfights, it just eliminates downtime, waiting on Balance and a lot of hassle for groups that want to pull with the AOE Balance. It's the same deal with Stoneskin 2 being exclusive to WHM. It being WHM exclusive is not an advantage for WHM, it being made available for all healer classes would not change ANYTHING about healer balance and the only thing the WHM-exclusivity does is being an annoyance and waste of time for AST+SCH groups that have to manually stoneskin eight times pre-pull. There is no valid reason for Stoneskin II to be WHM exclusive, yet it is anyway.

Why do we need to rely on having an AOE Balance prepull? Exactly because we are speedkilling and playing the game for the purpose of getting a good killtime. Doing a pull without an aoe balance+singletarget balance prepull during a speedkill run is an act of futility since 3.4 Balance buffs. It's a necessity for speedkilling groups nowadays, but the wait for the rng gods is sometimes just atrocious.
Having waited 35 minutes without actually playing once in our A9S Speedkills, just for getting our first Balance prepull, I'd greatly appreciate it, and what would the harm be of allowing that? It makes speedkill groups not waste half an hour waiting for a balance, and for everyone else, it changes not much else anyway. Having done competitive speedkilling in Midas Savage and Alex savage, I really preferred speedkilling in Midas Savage, this whole deal about waiting for balance pre-pull in order to even dream about getting competitive times that skyrocketed in Alex Savage thanks to the balance buff should just die away.

Eitherway, a change like that would be really appreciated in Stormsblood OR a straight out hardnerf to Balance in general in order to put it in line with other cards. I'd rather have fun playing the game competitively instead of waiting half an hour not playing the game until we got the balance.
I get that not everyone is speedkilling, but you shouldnt exclude other kind of playstyles as this game supports a widerange of player differences. Just because you don't wait for balance, it doesnt mean that everyone does the same as you. And if you dont care about Balance prepull, what would a change like the OP suggested change for you specifically? Nothing, you dont care about getting prepull balance anyway, while others who do wait for balance prepull for speedkilling purposes will benefit from it.
And what about WHM Balance? Anyone who started to play AST over WHM solely for the Balance Buff in 3.4 is most likely always waiting for prepull balance eitherway, otherwise there's no sense & reason to their change of class. And as such, they will benefit from getting a QOL too. Anyone who mains WHM, the Balance change would change nothing for you. AST Performance in comparison to WHM would stay the same, they just have to wait less between pulls.

[Dualgunner]

More than Astrologian, as a ninja it would be incredibly nice if certain abilities like Mudras or Aetherflows acted differently when not in combat...because waiting a full 20 seconds pre pull is always fun when playing NIN. >.>

I like this idea, I just also think other classes would benefit from certain skills acting...more efficiently out of combat.

[Felis]

Prepull, if you have an ast, you are waiting for the balance or at very least the arrow. This is simple concept. This could be solved simply. Remove the cool-down on redraw outside of combat and outside of pvp inside of cities. Simple solution for an issue that is nothing more than an annoyance to groups.

fixed it a bit

[Fernosaur]

> All players should respawn with full MP and TP on wipe.
> SMNs and SCHs should respawn with the maximum number of Aetherflow stacks available to them at their current level. MCHs should respawn with 5 ammo.
> Redraw's cooldown reduced to 1 second outside of combat (this would be easier to do than adding a card selection system).
> Stoneskin II's cast time and MP cost removed and the skill made available to other classes that can cross-class Stoneskin.

I love all of these suggestions, tbh. Though, I know someone "fixed" it by making it only in cities, but the CD duration reset only happens in Trials, so I'm sure this is something that can be done for Redraw as well: have the 1 sec CD only be available in Trials and not in Dungeons. It would definitely be an improvement for all these classes!!

[KaerisKlyne]

You can't just isolate certain scenarios that are, whether you like it or not, tied into larger conversations about how a job works.

It's a literal deck of cards. You know what a stacked deck is in real life? Cheating the system to win.

[ToasterMan]

Honestly all of the AST are gonna hate me for this one but I'm gonna go out and say it anyway. I honestly think if SE wants any hope for making AST balanced is if they just remove Balance. Replace it with another kind of buff. A straight up damage buff is just way too good.

[Ceasaria]

Honestly all of the AST are gonna hate me for this one but I'm gonna go out and say it anyway. I honestly think if SE wants any hope for making AST balanced is if they just remove Balance. Replace it with another kind of buff. A straight up damage buff is just way too good.

Yep, I think healer should never have the possibility to give an offensive buff to teammate.

[l1nk]

And that's our community. OP asks for something very legit, yet he gets attacked by ppl who can't even read properly and the change doesn't inflence them at all. No worries guys, this change won't make u suddenly skip soar.

[JunseiKei]

Would rather have full MP and TP gained upon wipe as well as the CD reset than this.

I understand what OP is asking for, but you're... asking the removal of RNG [outside of combat] for leaderboard purposes that... SE doesn't even support.

[l1nk]

They don't support getting better either, u call that a good choice too?